Your greatest weakness could be your greatest gift!
Aisling Killoran, Accomplish Change Clinic
And so as we come to the end of World Mental Health Week, I cannot think of a better way to round it off on World Mental Health Day than with the following guest post from Aisling Killoran of Accomplish Change Clinic .
Aisling, a certified Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist, is someone I greatly admire for her passion and commitment to empowering people to reach their optimum health and wellbeing. Her blog is full of helpful advice for readers and well worth checking out.
I am excited to share with you Aisling’s guest post on World Mental Health Day and as an added bonus, Aisling has made available a free 10 minute relaxation on her website for you to download.
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This post is dedicated to the Natural Self that is in ALL of US
“The Inner Critic”
Have you ever considered that your greatest weakness can actually be your greatest gift!
An example might be that inner “Critical Voice” the voice we listen to the most is our own! The critical voice has a number of upsides, it is actually on our side. What ever it says to us and however unfriendly it sounds, it is almost certainly trying to help in some way. It may think its keeping us safe.
The Inner critic says things like “your not good enough” – may be it wants us to know this so we don’t make ourselves more vulnerable than we need to be.
Maybe it’s trying to make sure you never have expectations or aspirations that make you vulnerable to being disappointed.
If you hear “ You don’t belong” it may well believe it’s keeping you safe by making sure you do not try to be included in a group it thinks might reject you and hurt you. It might be trying to keep you safe by reminding you not to try.
“you are stupid” “you are a failure” “ they will find you out” “ no one could love you” the list is endless… but wait there is an upside!! to every downside!
We can learn to use our critical voice with all its limiting beliefs to help us to know where we most need to go to heal.
Every thought we think creates an energy, be it negative or positive.
Your Body is more powerful than you can imagine ….filled with life, energy, and a compelling ability for self-healing, so instead of criticizing it back or fighting it or trying to silence it, we can start by thanking the critical voice for what it has been trying to do for us and asking it to take on a new role in helping us in a different way.
Our Inner critic can guide us to where we need to go to feel better about ourselves in our lives in the present.
Critical voices are created by our experiences, and with awareness we can team up with them to help us do the detective work about what it is that we need to tune into to change our lives in the present.
The critical voice can also alert us to why it is that we are not getting what we want in our lives. If we are trying to focus on what we want but have beliefs – conscious or unconscious-about why we should not or cannot have what we want , the blocking beliefs will win every time. The critical voice can alert us to those blocking beliefs and give us the opportunity to deal with them.
Let your critical voice lead YOU to what YOU need to deal with to have the life YOU want.
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Accomplish Change Clinic
Certified Consulting Practitioners & Trainers in Hypnosis, Psychotherapy and Energy Psychology.
Full details, one to one appointments, upcoming workshops in HypnoBirthing, EFT, Energy Psychology Certification Programmes at:
Web: http://www.accomplishchange.ie
Email: info@accomplishchange.ie
Blog: http://www.accomplishchange.ie/blog
Wow! This post was a revelation to me! I am very aware of that critical voice in my head – mostly it sounds like my mom! but I never thought it could actually be helping me. Thanks for a terrific post.
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Like Lorraine, I never knew my inner critic could be my ally. I feel more empowered after reading this today!
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Thanks for a week of empowering and enlightening guest posts – love today’s too and the free download is an added bonus 🙂
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Really enjoyed reading this post today – as other readers have said – it was a revelation to me – I always thought my inner critic was out to get me!
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I know others have said it here already, but I always thought you had to shut that inner voice up and I have been fighting a losing battle with it for years. This has given me a whole new perspective and I’m grateful for that!
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I believe that the inner critic begins as a survival mechanism and so Aisling’s advice to use that in a positive way is very helpful.
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When Lorraine says she can hear her inner critic as her mom’s voice in her head – this makes perfect sense to me. If you think about it, from our earliest days, our Moms and Dads, and other family members, teachers, etc. have tried to fix us and mould us into an acceptable image of how they believe we should behave. All of these voices build up in our heads over the years, combining to make us feel less than adequate, less than whole, less than what we “should” be. Perhaps that is why Lorraine hears her mom’s voice in her head as that is where it first started to develop!
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The inner critic can lead to all sorts of problems including low self-esteem, eating disorders, etc., so it is important to be aware of it and handle it correctly. Excellent post!
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I agree with Angie that the first step in reducing the power of the inner critic is to become aware of it. The next step is to separate from it. You are not your inner critic, it is a part of you, but it is not who you are.
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Really enjoyed this post and reading all the comments. Thank you too for the free download.
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